


Night So Frozen

by via_ostiense



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-11
Updated: 2005-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:35:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/via_ostiense/pseuds/via_ostiense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark pulled his jacket tighter around him and perched on the table, shivering.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night So Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> I was fed up with cold, snowy winters when I wrote this, can you tell?

Mark pulled his jacket tighter around him and perched on the table, shivering. No chairs; you could scrounge up chairs in dumpsters if you really needed one, and so the old ones had gone into the wood stove a few weeks ago.

"You alright, man?" Roger looked even colder than Mark. He'd returned from rehab as pasty as hell, more worn out than the dirty slush that froze and refroze on their doorstep.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Mark grinned and hoped it didn't look as ghastly as it felt, all saggy and tired from days of pretending that things were all right when they could hardly be farther from.

"Hey, lemme start a fire. You look like you're freezing." Roger set down his guitar and hopped off the table. He surveyed the room uncertainly, looking for flammable material.

"There's nothing left." Mark hunched over and breathed into his hands. If his camera was working, he'd take clips of the warm steam rising from Roger's breath. He looked like a ghost breathing out his essence, sublimating into a mist of wistful talent.

"Yeah, there is." Roger crossed the room to their one bookshelf and grabbed some papers off his shelf. He tossed them into wood stove, then followed them with a spark from their flint and dwindling tinder. He strode back to the table and grabbed up his guitar by the neck and settled down while swinging her into his lap in one smooth motion. He cradled the instrument loosely and began plucking away on it, the same piece he'd been working on since they'd met in college. A few notes sounded different; Roger frowned and shook his head, trying a new chord progression.

"You know, it might be easier to work out changes if you wrote a score." Mark was tentative; Roger had never used sheet music for as long as they'd known each other, claiming it stifled his creativity. Mark, on the other hand, was obessive about keeping all of his film sorted in a chaotic fashion that worked for him, and kept all the drafts of his scripts until the temperature dropped too low.

"I tried it for a while, actually, since I wanted to work out variations." Roger smiled briefly while stretching his fingers.

"Why aren't you looking at them now?"

"Tossed 'em." Roger shrugged, not looking up.

"What?" Mark was startled. "You can't mean - the stove?"

"You looked cold." Roger did look up, then, with a slow, pale smile. "Distracts me from the flow. It only got in the way, anyway."


End file.
